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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Reporting for Huffington Post, J. Carl Ganter reports from the World Economic Forum's laughable "New Champions" event in Tianjin, China and notes the humble tone coming from Wall Street's Masters of the Universe.

He drops this quote from William Rhodes, vice chairman of Citigroup, who warned attendees that:

"What is happening in the markets in the US is affecting the credit markets worldwide," . . . "We are in a crisis of confidence. There is just no confidence in financial institutions in the market."

"One of the things that must come out of this crisis that did not come out of previous crises is some form of international accounting standards," . . . "We really need a set of internationally accepted regulatory norms. We are too tied together in a globalized world."

Notes Ganter: "This humility among the world's power brokers emerged as I looked over their shoulders watching Wall Street's drama unfold on the BBC and CNN, coincidentally in parallel with China's own tainted milk scandal. If there was a confluence for a confidence crisis, it was here."

So will governments worldwide, and most importantly the next President of the US, heed these calls from market participants themselves for more robust oversight from competent regulators who are not beholden to the companies they are expected to watch over? And will these regulatory bodies then pass any meaningful reform which are geared toward ending the Reagan Revolution's deregulation of Wall Street and returning the US to the New Deal policies that rescued this nation from the last Great Depression?

Update: And why we're on the subject of apportioning blame for the current crisis, let's not forget to mention John McCain's former economic advisor Phil Gramm, who is responsible for Commodity Futures Modernization Act.